Generic Company Place Holder Orca Browser

The free Orca browser for Windows starts with the Firefox
browser and builds in some extra features, such as bookmarks sync
or ad blocking, that you normally only get with add-ons. But using
it means putting up with some major limitations with searches,
add-ons, and other features compared with Firefox.

Orca's extra features include online storage that can be used to
synchronize bookmarks and passwords, an ad blocker, an RSS reader
and other options. Bookmarks synchronization is one feature in
particular that nobody should be without, but it's also something
you can get for Firefox with an
add-on like Xmarks. Other Orca
features can likewise be gained with other Firefox add-ons.

And in some cases, the Firefox add-on might work better. For
example, after enabling the built-in Orca ad-blocker, I still saw
many ads. Viewing the same page with Firefox and Adblock Plus
didn't show them.

Although vendor Avant Force provides a list of additional Firefox extensions you can install
into Orca, some popular add-ons-- including McAfee SiteAdvisor
and Locationbar2--don't
work at all. Also, while Orca offers the ability to switch between
some built-in skins on the fly, you can't use Firefox themes.

Finally, Orca makes it hard to change your search engine.
Instead of the drop-down menu in Firefox that lets you quickly
choose a different engine, in Orca you have to dig into the program
options to choose something other than Yahoo. The only other listed
options are Google and Avant find (from its creators), and although
you can manually type in the search string to use another engine,
you can't use the simple search plugins available for Firefox on
many sites.

If you're allergic to installing your own add-ons in Firefox,
then Orca's built-in extras will provide some welcome new features.
But anyone willing to find and install a few add-ons into Firefox
will likely end up happier.

--Erik Larkin

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